Xie Lin got into the car, inserted the key, and rested a hand on the steering wheel, asking, “Have you thought this through?”
Chi Qing didn’t answer.
“Stop messing around,” Xie Lin said with a sigh. “It’s only just hit six o’clock. If you get out and head back, you can still catch up on some sleep.”
Chi Qing scoffed. “You’re so annoying.”
Chi Qing completely ignored him. He placed his umbrella to the side, crossed his black-gloved hands, closed his eyes, and waited and waited, but still didn’t feel Xie Lin release the clutch to start the car.
He was just about to say, As a grown man, why are you dawdling? I’m not afraid of death, so what are you afraid of? when he heard Xie Lin speak: “Get out of the car.”
Chi Qing opened his eyes.
“…I’m not kicking you out; I actually can’t drive it this time,” Xie Lin explained. “Someone messed with the brakes.”
Among killing methods designed to look like accidents, cutting the brake line is one of the most common. The culprit certainly didn’t want to attract too much trouble. If he could create an accident covertly, he wouldn’t choose to confront Xie Lin directly. Coupled with the car crash experience from yesterday—he would be even less likely to opt for a head-on collision.
At the same time, in the residential complex’s security room.
The security guard lounged in his chair. He was on the early shift today but clearly wasn’t fully awake. Stretching lazily, he said, “You’ve been standing there staring for ages. What are you looking at? Hurry up and leave once you’re done sweeping.”
Beside the guard stood a man dressed as a cleaner. The man was hunched over, his peripheral vision constantly darting to the surveillance screen.
He watched the car in the garage remain motionless. After a short while, the two people inside got out.
“…” What the hell.
How did these two act like they knew what he was planning? They got in the car, so why didn’t they drive?!
The man packed up his cleaning tools. “I’m done sweeping. Leaving right now.”
His voice was deliberately lowered, sounding like an older man. The guard just felt he looked unfamiliar and had a very distinct accent. “Hold on, are you new here?”
“I just started this week,” the man replied.
“Alright then.” The guard noticed the man kept his head down the whole time. Annoyed and unwilling to waste time on a cleaner, he waved his hand. “Go on.”
Chi Qing spent the entire day acting extremely cautious.
To lure the snake out of its hole, the two of them couldn’t just avoid wandering around outside. But wandering around easily made them targets. Finding the right balance was truly difficult.
Just to be safe, even hailing a cab by the road required verifying the taxi driver’s credentials to assess the risk.
Before the driver could even flip down the “Available” sign, the two men who had just gotten in surrounded him from the left and right.
“Excuse me, sir, where are you from?”
“Me? From Xiajing City—”
“Oh, nothing. You just look familiar, like a distant relative of mine. By the way, I see your car is new. It hasn’t been registered long. Did you just come to Southern China this year?”
“Just arrived a few months ago. You could even tell that?”
“How many trips have you taken?”
“Counting you guys, over two hundred…”
“Could you show your ID?”
“Huh?”
Chi Qing wasn’t as talkative as Xie Lin. He coldly spat out three words: “Take it out.”
Two minutes later, the pair were kicked out of the car, left standing by the road blowing in the cold wind.
The taxi driver stepped on the gas, intending to speed away from the area. “Crazy… Must be messing with me. Who asks for an ID just to take a cab?”
Xie Lin: “…”
Chi Qing: “…”
Chi Qing detested crowded places and always walked where there were fewer people. However, just as he stepped away from Xie Lin’s side to avoid a crowd, he was abruptly pulled back. “Walking under there makes it easy to get hit by a falling billboard.”
“…”
He really wasn’t letting any detail slip that could be a potential assassination attempt.
After pulling him back, Xie Lin didn’t let go. Chi Qing tugged at his wrist.
“There are too many people,” Xie Lin said. “Stay beside me. Don’t go bumping into someone by accident and then look for a restroom with a long face.”
After losing control a few times, Chi Qing was often forced to go out because he needed Xie Lin as a “soundproofer.” Walking down the street, he suddenly realized that facing the coming and going pedestrians had gradually become a habit. If he really delved into it, this “habit” probably stemmed from knowing Xie Lin was right beside him.
He knew that if there were many people, he didn’t have to face the surging crowd alone. He also knew that when he found it too noisy, he could grab the hand of the person next to him.
This feeling was even more bizarre than the “worry” that kept him awake last night.
Walking down that long street, Xie Lin suddenly stopped at an intersection and asked, “Were you worried about me this morning?”
“…”
The fact that he was worried about him was weird enough; laying it all out on the table to discuss was even weirder.
“No.” Chi Qing turned his head away and said coldly, “Don’t overthink it. I’m just curious. Life is too boring, so I want to see how you’ll die.”
Xie Lin: “…”
Since Xie Lin didn’t have any pre-scheduled activities today, he could only plan randomly. To accommodate that masked gentleman, they couldn’t go to places that were too crowded, otherwise it would be hard for the other party to strike. So, he and Chi Qing went to a psychological clinic like two people with nothing better to do.
The environment around the clinic was quiet.
The window of an ordinary private car parked quietly near the two slowly rolled down. The person inside stared at the four words “Psychological Clinic” for a long time, muttering to himself, “Fuck, these two really are sick.”
Inside the clinic, Dr. Wu was very surprised to see them. “Why did you guys drop by so suddenly today?”
Dr. Wu looked at Xie Lin, then at Chi Qing. He never expected these two to seek him out together. Although it was a rare opportunity, his morning schedule was already fully booked. He said awkwardly, “…I have a consultation in ten minutes.”
Xie Lin naturally dodged the issue. “No, we just happened to be running some errands nearby today, so we came to see you and borrow your restroom while we’re at it.”
Hearing this, Dr. Wu felt completely relieved of any psychological burden.
After Xie Lin went to the restroom, only Dr. Wu and Chi Qing were left sitting face-to-face.
“How have you been feeling lately?” Dr. Wu asked.
Chi Qing lowered his eyes and replied after a moment, “Lately… things have gotten very weird.”
Chi Qing had no intention of elaborating, and Dr. Wu didn’t have the time either. Looking at Xie Lin’s back disappearing around the corner, he suddenly said, “Have you ever wondered why I put you and Xie Lin together for treatment?”
“As Xie Lin’s psychological counselor… I actually don’t know what he’s thinking at all either.”
“After all these years, his psychological file has always been blank with me.”
“He knows psychology more professionally than I do,” Dr. Wu withdrew his gaze and rested it on Chi Qing. “If you compare everyone’s inner self to an object, he… he’s like a door. No one can walk through that door, and I have a hard time imagining who he would ever grant access to.”
What Dr. Wu didn’t say was: But when you two are together, I always feel he’s a little different.
Although Xie Lin was friendly to everyone, behind that friendliness was a sense of distance. This was the first time Dr. Wu had ever seen Xie Lin get so close to someone. Regardless of the reason for this ‘closeness,’ perhaps it had simply started from curiosity.
This was the first time Dr. Wu had spoken about Xie Lin to someone else. The scheduled consultation time for Dr. Wu’s client quickly arrived. Chi Qing was still pondering the phrase “grant access”: Could this be the reason why I can’t read Xie Lin?
While Chi Qing was deep in thought, Xie Lin patted him on the shoulder from behind. “Let’s go.”
Xie Lin retracted his hand and said with evident boredom, “I waited in the restroom stall for ages and no one came. His car is right outside; looks like he doesn’t plan on coming in.”
Along the way earlier, he had been observing their surroundings. Through a wide-angle mirror on the street corner, he spotted a private car trailing them at a moderate distance, which then drove off after they entered the clinic.
The clinic had few people, and the restroom was an even better location for a crime. He deliberately went to the restroom alone to wait, smoking half a cigarette while leaning against the stall door. However, for whatever reason, the other party chose not to make a move.
Chi Qing had already noticed that car long ago. “Isn’t he right outside?”
“He might have another plan,” Xie Lin felt like he was starring in an adapted version of Final Destination. “But based on this test and his previous methods, he clearly prefers manufacturing accidents.”
Falling off a building, a flower pot, brakes. All three methods were aimed at staging an accident.
Xie Lin continued, “Manufacturing an accident isn’t hard, but he doesn’t know where I’ll go today, so it’s very difficult to design a specific accident in advance… He’ll tamper with a place I’m guaranteed to pass through. Besides the car, what else fits this condition?”
A car. A tool he was guaranteed to use as long as he went out.
What else in life was a necessity like a car?
Xie Lin couldn’t think of anything right away, but this outing confirmed one thing for him. The trap was definitely not outside.
The pit dug waiting for them to jump into was highly likely back at their residential complex.
By the time they headed back, it was nearing mealtime. Very few people were walking around the complex; they had either gone to work or were home cooking. After pushing open the building door, Xie Lin naturally went to press the elevator button. Just as the elevator doors closed, something suddenly hit him.
Chi Qing, holding his umbrella, looked at the flashing elevator buttons and simultaneously had a thought: If there’s any other necessity in life like a car—
Then it could only be the elevator.
As if to verify his and Xie Lin’s suspicions, the elevator ascended floor by floor through the dark, deep shaft. When it reached the 8th floor, it violently jerked to a halt.
The next second, the elevator button lights abruptly went out.
Not just the buttons—the several fluorescent tubes bordering the ceiling of the elevator all clicked off, plunging them into darkness.
Someone had cut the elevator’s power, stopping its operation. The eighth floor was the middle level; there were still several floors above it. The elevator was suspended mid-air.
“My fault. I wasn’t paying attention earlier; I shouldn’t have let you come in with me,” Xie Lin said slowly in the pitch-black elevator car as he took off his jacket and draped it over Chi Qing. He added, “He should be right here. Lend me the umbrella.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Xie Lin grabbed the diagonal bar of the suspended ceiling inside the elevator with one hand, hoisting his entire body into the air.
Using the umbrella, he smashed open the panel on the roof of the elevator.
With a loud crash, the flimsy plastic panel cracked right down the middle, pieces falling down along with a spray of dust.
Chi Qing’s face was coated in the falling dust, finally understanding why Xie Lin had draped his jacket over him.
The shaft was already dark, and with the power out, it was impossible to see anything. Only a faint black silhouette could be vaguely made out above. Xie Lin’s strike caused the black silhouette crouching on the elevator roof to instantly lose its footing. The figure swayed precariously, grabbing the steel cable to steady itself.
Just as the silhouette managed to stabilize, Xie Lin tossed the umbrella and flipped himself up through the opening.
The silhouette sputtered, “How did you know—”
Would a normal person immediately kick open the elevator roof after a power outage? Wouldn’t they obediently wait inside while pressing the emergency button to contact the outside world?
“I know far more than you think,” Xie Lin said. “To create the illusion of an accidental death, a sudden elevator drop is indeed a good idea. Sabotaging the elevator brakes is a bit difficult, but you can use the suspended state during a power outage to cut the steel cables. So I guessed you were in the shaft from the very beginning.”
Before he and Chi Qing entered the elevator, the silhouette had been lying quietly on the elevator roof, watching them and waiting for the right moment to strike.
He held hydraulic shears in his hand. The steel cable he was gripping had already been cut halfway through, hanging by just a few remaining threads, looking as if it could snap at any moment. Because the cable was severed, the entire elevator visibly jolted and began to sway slightly.
The silhouette cursed under his breath. He appeared to have professional training as he pushed off the surrounding scaffolding and lunged at Xie Lin. However, Xie Lin’s reaction was faster, blocking the strike with a backhand.
In the next instant, Xie Lin guarded against any potential point of attack while simultaneously throwing a punch straight at the silhouette’s face!
The silhouette had no choice but to lean back to dodge the blow. Unsteady on his feet as he leaned back, he simply jumped down, attempting to abandon his position and dive into the elevator car. However, the moment he jumped, before his feet even touched the ground, his neck was locked mid-air by a leg from above.
The grip around his neck tightened relentlessly. There was still someone holding an umbrella inside the elevator. Before the tip of Chi Qing’s umbrella could stab upward, the silhouette gritted his teeth. He had to break free from Xie Lin. So, he fumbled for a folding knife hidden in a secret pocket of his clothes.
Gripping the knife, he viciously plunged it in. The man didn’t even utter a sound.
If not for the smell of blood, he almost would have suspected he had stabbed himself.
It was one against two, never mind the odds of winning. Half of the elevator’s steel cable was severed; who knew how long the remaining half could hold.
As long as the other half failed to hold and snapped too, the entire elevator would rapidly plummet downward.
